this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Leopards Ate My Face

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The Sotheby's auction house has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by investors who regret buying Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that sold for highly inflated prices during the NFT craze in 2021.

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[–] [email protected] 196 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nope. Too bad, they knew what they were buying. That they convinced themselves the value they attributed to it would remain or increase is entirely on them. The fact that so many others saw it through a realistic lens means they had the same ability and chose not to.

But that said, the proceeds for them should also get clawed back and 100% put toward scam identification education. Neither side in this one should walk away enriched.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Honestly I’m ok with them keeping their money, afaik everyone knew where they were buying they were just dumb enough to think it would ever be worth something. If we want to claw back money from people we should start with the ones ruining the environment to make the line go up

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago

I mean yeah, if you make it illegal for dumb people to overpay for stupid shit, half the global economy would collapse overnight

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[–] atempuser23 12 points 1 year ago

That's the whole point of legitimate auction houses like Sothby's. They pay experts to provide some legitimacy and sanity. It's one thing for me to say that a kids finger painting is worth 50k, it's a different thing for a trained art appraiser at an auction house to set that price.

Sotheby sets the initial prices and provides estimates of value. They were supposed to be the responsible adult in the room. Now if they values them at say $1000 and they sold for 100,000k that's on the buyer. If the value was set for 80k and it sold for 90k that's a different story.

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[–] wamasi 125 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Should've invested in beanie babies like the rest of the smart people.

[–] DocMcStuffin 65 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nah man, pogs are where it's at. Pogs!

[–] MajorHavoc 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Joking aside, I miss my Pogs. Those need to come back.

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[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife 18 points 1 year ago

Back in the mid-90s I had a friend who inherited $40,000 from her grandmother and spent all of it on $75 Fossil watches, the kind that were based on old cartoons like Popeye etc. And it took her a while to do it since she would drive to malls within a few hours of her and clean out the department stores that carried them. That's over 500 watches, a few at a time.

She was adamant that this was an excellent investment, but these are on eBay now for $50 to $60. At parties she would pull out the collection and start showing them to people (no touchy, of course) as if there was something intrinsically interesting about a cartoon Fossil watch. The sad thing is, with $40,000 in hand she probably could have bought two or three times as many from a wholesaler and maybe eventually actually have made some money.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

At least with beanie babies there was a physical object.

[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The fact that they still sell for 50k is insane. It's a shitty picture with a convoluted proof of ownership. The fuck.

[–] atretador 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A lot of those transactions is just to up the price so dumb asses think they are worth it. The other half is just dumb asses ofc.

[–] Tugboater203 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It has to be some form of money laundering.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago

I hope the defendant loses, but the damages shouldn’t be awarded to the fools who bought the NFTs. That money should go to literally anyone else, because they’ve already proved they can’t be trusted with money. Fuck both sides of this dispute.

[–] Custoslibera 63 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wish I had the temerity to sue people when an ‘investment’ doesn’t go my way.

I’m sure they’d have sued Sotheby’s if they made lots of profit right?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There was the bit about Sotheby's misrepresenting FTX as a buyer, but that doesn't make me any more sympathetic to their situation. Which, now that I've typed that, is extremely cynical when I like to think of myself as empathetic. I'm gonna try to change my take here. I like @db2's take that the money should be invested in public education.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I don’t think it would have mattered had they known. FTX was still in their good graces at the time, and FTX didn’t actually scam anyone (in this particular transaction lmao).

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's an average price of over $241,000, but Bored Ape NFTs now sell for a floor price of about $50,000 worth of ether cryptocrurrency, according to CoinGecko data accessed today.

Wait till they realize the actual value is $0.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

The 50k value is itself propped up by fake transactions anyways. Since these sales are public, they can just push some around between two paid off clients to give the impression this is their worth.

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[–] minorninth 43 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Wait...the article says they're still worth $50k each.

Really?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (9 children)

You're vastly overestimating the reasoning ability of prospective NFT buyers.

They couldn't accurately identify a picture. Instead of concluding "I can just copy and paste this", they overrode their common sense to convince themselves that a digital picture of a monkey was unique. Unerringly, truly, exceptionally unique. A digital monkey picture.

It's pretty great. NFT dimbulbs are the flat earthers of crypto.

[–] Pipoca 25 points 1 year ago (10 children)

NFTs remind me a lot of the international star registry.

You're paying someone a lot for them to record some unofficial bragging rights in some unofficial database that literally no normal person cares about.

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[–] dinckelman 12 points 1 year ago

Collective delusion of people who still think they're holding onto something worth anything

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

A foolish monkey and his bananas are soon parted.

[–] assassinatedbyCIA 30 points 1 year ago

When the price of all that worthless shit was going up these bozos smugly told anyone who told them it was worthless to ‘have fun staying poor’. They made their bed. They need to eat their loses.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

How much are NFTs worth? Not a Fucking Thing!

[–] Buffalox 20 points 1 year ago

Nonono you didn't read the article, the company behind says these are unique, and they were promoted by famous people, and auctioned at Sotheby's.

Trust me, clearly they are very valuable, honest! Somehow they are claimed to still be worth $50,000!! I bet in another couple of years they'll still be worth way over erh let me think, they may still be worth something, maybe a couple hundred? It's the future, it's a sure thing!!

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago
[–] patachu 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just checked in on how NBA Topshot (basically sports highlight NFTs) are doing and apparently they are still finding greater fools.

[–] kameecoding 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

they are only greater fools if they come from the greater fool plains of the US, otherwise it's just sparkling bagholders.

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[–] Resol 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just don't buy the "worthless digital monkeys" and they'll be so worthless that their value will be in the negatives; they'll give you money.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

In fairness, they didn't buy the monkeys, they bought a spot on the blockchain that says they own the hyperlink to the picture of the monkey.

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[–] Treczoks 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't even understand how someone could fall for NFTs. It was so obviously a stupid, broken concept from the very beginning, it hurts to know that anyone actually was so dumb spent money on this.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Conmen typically target people of low intelligence in scams because it increases the chances of said scam being successful, like the classic Nigerian Prince scam littered with spelling inaccuracies aimed at duping the idiots.

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[–] FlyingSquid 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Remember when Seth Green said he had a whole TV show ready to go based on his his Bored Ape and then someone stole it? He paid $300,000 to get it back and ever since... no TV show. I'm wondering if he's just embarrassed at this point.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

GEE, WHO THE FUCK COULD'VE FORESEEN SUCH TURN OF EVENTS, HUH??? If only there were people that realized very early on that NFTs were absolutely pointless, right?

Sarcasm aside, even being the USA, I doubt there's any law that criminalizes shit investments. Despite everything, NFTs and cryptocoins themselves still aren't legally considered scams, so investing in them and losing money due to their price fluctuations aren't crimes.

Yuga colluded with fine arts broker, Defendant Sotheby's, to run a deceptive auction.

Isn't that the modus operandi of art auctions in general? There's always at least one or two fellas doing everything in their power to pump up prices of certain pieces or specific artists, since they have big collections.

Sotheby's Metaverse, an NFT trading platform opened after the auction, "operated (or attempted to operate) as an unregistered broker of securities."

Ooohh, now that could be interesting, though I highly doubt they'll get more than a slap on the wrist, if it gets that far.

[–] steve228uk 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh I didn’t realise FTX was involved in this grift 😂

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[–] Slitted 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of all the stupid NFTs, I'm glad to see the bored ape collapse.

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[–] Toneswirly 14 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nfts could have been a revolutionary technology and we instead had a bunch of hucksters racing to reinvent scams with it.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

2021: "NFTs aren't like tulips at all!!!"

2023: crickets

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah, I forgot about these.

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